traces engages with community
movement sessions held since 1998 in Briton Ferry and Pontardawe Arts Centre,
Wales. A group of users of the mental health day care services and other members
of the community meet weekly with dance leader Petra Kuppers for 'Dance with
a Difference' sessions.

The sessions use bodywork
to foster well-being and movement experience. Each session consists of relaxation
and visualisation exercises, and the creation of improvised dances.

traces uses video and photography
by The Olimpias to re-create part of the session
experience. In a video installation, huge images of the participants' concentrated
faces and bodies surround a platform which invites the spectator to enter physically,
to move from watcher to witness. The living performance traces in these images
provide a counterpoint to many traditional representations of people in mental
health settings, which focused on loss of control and chaos. traces documents
the beauty, dignity and privacy of all its group members.

Participatory Arts

traces documents liminal
dances - performances which are just out of reach, which can be glimpsed in
still and concentrated faces, but which never fully materialise anywhere else
than in the spectator's engagement.

As a performance experiment,
traces emerged out of two sets of border-skirmishes: the relationship between
community arts and contemporary art practice, and the representational battlefields
of mental health. traces evidences developments in community arts practice and
raises questions about absence and presence of 'other' people in the British
art scene.

How can aesthetic experiments
enrich our social scene?

How can the obsession with
the liminal, the tantalising, the not-quite-there translate itself as a positive
practice for people who have often found no spaces for themselves, and no control
over their representations?

How can you address art
forms to a range of people with different aesthetic experiences and training?

traces is not a one-off
intervention in the life of a local community, but has been developed out of
years of interaction and creation. How do issues of care and attention manifest
themselves in the notoriously fleeting forms of performance art?

The
Video Installation

The installation requires
a black box studio with two video projectors and a small monitor. The work consists
of 14 photographs, 3 videos, one soundtrack of a dream/movement journey and
comfortable cushions and spreads on the floor. The videos cycle for 2 hours,
and the soundtrack provides a 8.30 minute private experience for one to three
spectators.

traces have been presented
in Swansea, Pontardawe, London, Lancaster, and early versions in Nottingham,
Guildford and Manchester. Venues have included community centres, adult education
centres, installation festivals and university art centres.

Audience Reactions

Quite wonderful and deeply
relaxing. The images are beautiful - the people are beautiful.

This is very moving - it
makes you feel the tenderness of person to person.

This could be great to have
in public spaces such as trainstations, policestations! whatever...

I never noticed how much
the still face moves.

Intrigued by my trying to
image the internal movement - found the twitching eyelids both irritating and
intriguing as a result.

A soothing sea of calm...

One day, all workplaces
will have rooms like this.

A way to find the place
inside you where the real you resides and the possibilities are limitless -
Gentle, powerful liberation.

I found this very stimulating
and it raised a number of questions, particularly around ways of demonstrating
the effectiveness of art interventions.

Reviews:

Anna-Marie Taylor: 'Words
and Images: New Work by Women Working in Wales'. Planet 141, June/July 2000,
p. 124-126.